Hallelujah!

We have cable! We have internet! We're livin' the good life once again. It must have been tough living pre-1950's; I'm not sure we could've done it. The only (and I do mean only) downside to rejoining the 21st century? I may never get all our boxes unpacked now. I have entirely too many Housewives shows to catch up on.

Here are a few shots from the last week:

Closing on our home- Monday, November 7th

remember this blouse?

You shoulda seen Zach drivin' this U-Haul. Curb checks, big time. I was following him in our truck and could not quit giggling.

Celebratory dinner/first meal in our house. Nothing like the smell of Burger King to christen a new home.

Zach's parents brought a bunch of our wedding gifts this weekend....we finally have a doormat! It's interchangeable for different seasons and made by Matmates.

Our new Fiesta flatware makes me happy.

And a sneak peek at tomorrow's unveiling....our "sherbet sitting room". It's an interesting tale, let me tell you. You won't want to miss it!

My plan is to show you the house room by room, as we get each one looking virtually-presentable. After all, my Momma does read this blog.


I sure have missed the blogging world the past week! It feels good to be home.

On Being a Poser...

Carrie Bradshaw said, "I used to think those people who sat alone at Starbucks writing on their laptops were pretentious posers. Now I know: They're people who have just moved in with someone". Change that to "They're people who have just moved into a new house and keep getting stood up by the cable guy" and it's my life in a nutshell.

As I sit here downing my second vanilla latte and tapping at lightning speed on the iPad, I am very sorry to say I have no pictures to post of the house yet. Yet. I promise I will soon; you have my word. Zach's Mom, Dad, Katy and Caleb are coming this evening with a carload of our wedding gifts and we (we meaning me...Zach is indifferent) are really excited to start decorating. And baking. Mostly baking.

Assuming the cable guy comes through on Monday, I will be back early next week with some house pictures for you guys. Until then, you can find me at Starbucks, eating my weight in pumpkin bread and pink frosted donuts. Hope everyone has has a wonderful weekend!

p.s. We received The Versatile Blogger award from Shannon over at Imperfectly Inspired today! Thank you Shannon!! More on that next week, too. Happy Friday, Friends!

Moving, Moving is no Fun, Unless You Share with Everyone!

The title of this post is such a bunch of baloney. Moving is never fun. However, sharing simply translates to reading about in your lucky little case. I really wish all our junk could just hop, skip, and jump it's way in and out of the moving truck tomorrow. Something like this...

(especially if it would sing cute, catchy songs while doing so)         Image found here

We are officially closing on our first home tomorrow morning!! I really need to use some more exclamation points...please bear with me...
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

K, I feel better now. We have been praying about this move for what seems like forever and are so thankful it is finally happening. Our house is about 40 minutes down the road in Spring, TX. Zach refers to it as "the 'burbs", but that just makes me think of all the 80's suburbans from our elementary carpool days. Not all that glamorous.

We took a ton of pictures during the inspection, but I have this huge fear of the police showing up at our door and hauling my how-dare-you-post-pictures-of-someone-else's-home self to jail. We just bought a house, we can't afford bail. So, for now, this is all I feel comfortable disclosing. Many, many more pictures will be coming your way after Monday!

the front

 photos via har.com

the backyard

I am so anxious to show you guys the inside! Two hints: wood floors and window seats. Gets me all giddy just typing it. I'm a little worried about my housekeeping skills though; jumping from a 900 square foot apartment (balcony included) to a 3,200 square foot home is quite a change. I will definitely have to up my skills. Thankfully I have a patient husband and a really great vacuum cleaner.

We hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! I'll leave you with a laugh; this was my husband hangin' out at Sears last night. We spent about 30 minutes on that particular mattress...there may or may not have been some snoring (and questionable looks) involved.

Peace out!

Chocolate Chip Heath Bar Cookies

These cookies are not very photogenic. I'm being critical only because they are one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth. Seriously. They're lucky they ever made it to the oven, too, because the dough was so.freakin'.good. Okay, I'm done bragging on them. Just one more thing....these cookies are really, really good.

My Momma introduced Heath Bars to me at a young age and I was instantly in love. Toffee is such a perfect component for a cookie; It's crunchy yet chewy, chocolatey and buttery. The original recipe on Lovin' From the Oven called for walnuts instead of chocolate chips, but I made the game time decision to use what we already had. I just wasn't feeling a Wal Mart walnut run (say that three times fast), especially when we already had chocolate chips which happen to be Z's favorite. They turned out very yummy indeed.

Just a heads up, though...from start to finish it took me about an hour and a half to make/bake these. The perfect time to tackle them (pun intended!) would be on a Saturday afternoon while your husband's glued to a football game on TV. I guess I'll be making these cookies every Saturday.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chopped Heath Bar pieces (Four 1.4 ounce bars)

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Hardest part of the whole recipe is chopping these bad boys up.

Repeat after me: I will lick the beaters.

Directions:
1 Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a separate bowl, combine Heath Bar pieces and chocolate chips. Set aside.
2 Cream butter until fluffy. Add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy (a couple minutes). Beat in eggs one at a time, add vanilla.
3 Alternatively mix in the Heath Bar mixture and the flour mixture, a third at a time, until well blended. Chill cookie dough for at least 30 minutes.
4 Preheat oven to 350°F. On cookie sheets, spoon out the cookie dough in small 1-inch diameter balls. Place dough balls 3 inches away from each other on the cookie sheets. (Make sure there is plenty of room between the cookie balls, and that the cookie balls aren't too big. These cookies spread!)
5 Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are just starting to brown. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes. Then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Thanks for reading! Happy Friday!

7UP Biscuits

We have wanted to make these biscuits for quite some time now and finally got around to it yesterday. For some unknown reason, ours came out nothing like the pictures on Plain Chicken where we found the recipe. Luckily, God was watching over our kitchen and somehow miraculously turned our could-have-been-a-flop biscuits into Red Lobster biscuits. Seriously, we're talking miracle here people. They taste just like Red Lobster's minus the cheese! The dough just didn't form like it should have; it was much too sticky and hard to work with. Being the Pillsbury lovers we are, this was our first time making homemade biscuits so we're just counting our lucky stars we didn't burn the apartment complex down. All this to say, these will turn out yummy one way or another. You can't go wrong! (we're proof.) 
 

Ingredients:

2 cups Bisquick

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup 7-up

1/4 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 450.

Cut sour cream into biscuit mix, add 7-Up. Makes a very soft dough.

Sprinkle additional biscuit mix on board or table and pat dough out. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a 9 inch square pan. Place cut biscuits in pan and bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Just look at that golden underbelly. Oh my butter-loving goodness.

Zach spread honey cinnamon butter and drizzled honey all over his. It was amazing. As he took the last bite of his sugary concoction he said "I hope you didn't want any more...". Even if I did (and so what if I did?), that's what I like to hear.

Hope everyone's having a fabulous week!

It's a Marshmallow World in the Winter....

If you're wondering what in the world the title of this post means, you must watch this. Pretty please. It will make your day, I promise... especially if you're a cheesy sap like myself. Anything that says "It's a yum-yummy world made for sweethearts" has my immediate attention.

In honor of the holiday season quickly approaching, we thought we’d share a few of our Christmas memories through the years.

Santa traveled 471271 miles from the North Pole and this is the appreciation he gets?

You know that video I had you watch? Dean and Frank couldn't hold a light to our carolling.

up to no good....

can't even handle the cuteness of these three

sweet Papa Joe, attempting to teach me to play the dulcimer (glad to know the short attention span started at a young age)

I sure hope those yellow suspenders get passed down to Kamdon.

Baby Ryan's first Christmas. If you ever read this Ryan....the gift of your birth was better than anything we could've possibly received that Christmas. You make us the proudest big brother and big sister in the whole wide world.

more of that carolling I was telling you about...

Something fishy's going on with Santa and Jake...

Shane and I with Aunt Michelle at Mamaw's house (only my family will understand this: notice The Tank made a sneaky appearance)

 Katy, you little cutie!

 with my beautiful Momma on Christmas of '91

fast forward a few years...this is us as Santa & Mrs. Claus for a Christmas party last year

I wish I could somehow spread our overzealous holiday spirit through this post, but sadly that's not possible. This time of year is just so wonderful! I know, I know, Thanksgiving comes first...but that doesn't mean we can't sleep with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads.

Christmas, to us, is such a reflective time. It's a beautiful time. We realize it isn't all about Santa Claus and the gifts, but it is about the giving. The gift.
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord." -Luke Chapter 2, vs. 10-11

Happy (slightly early) Holidays, y'all!

Coffeecake in a Cup

Anytime Zach and I bake a cake, it seems like such a waste. It sits in the kitchen for days and days until we finally end up throwing 90% of it out. It's really sad.

Who am I kidding. We usually devour a cake in two days flat and then proceed to feel all guilty and tease each other about who's gonna bust the treadmill out first. Confession made, now you know why this single-serving coffeecake is the perfect solution for our lack of self control. Especially since we're down with anything coffee that doesn't actually have coffee in it. You know the whole Starbucks Frappuccino thing? Right up our non-coffee-liking alley.

 

This is how we do it (in my best Montell Jordan voice):

Add a tablespoon of butter and microwave for 8-10 seconds. Don't let it melt, just soften.

Stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar until it's fluffy and creamy.

Now add some egg. I used an entire egg, but you can just use half if you prefer. The more egg, the more crumbly it will be.

Stir in 2 tablespoons sour cream, a half teaspoon vanilla, 1/4 cup flour, and 1/8 teaspoon baking powder. If you don't have sour cream on hand, cream cheese works well too.

For the crumbly topping, put 1 tablespoon butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon in a separate bowl.

Smoosh together with your fingers until it's all combined.

Add the crumbling mixture to the cup.

Microwave for 1 minute then stir it up a bit. Keep microwaving in 10 second increments until it's done to your liking.

Viola! You now have yourself the perfect treat, and you don't have to worry about the guilt of eating an entire cake in two days. Then again, you probably have more self control than we do.

Found this here on Pinterest!

p.s. We hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! We ate pizza and ice cream and watched Hocus Pocus. Success.
p.p.s. If you don't already follow us, we'd love it if you would! :) Thanks for reading, friends!